RENT FOR THE GAMES SUPPORTS VANCOUVER

Rent for the Games will be donating $50 from every rental towards ATIRA International Inn Project on 120 Jackson Street in Vancouver. ATIRA is currently raising funds to renovate the heritage property, and eventually to build an additional second-stage housing project attached to it. The goal is to provide housing to young women, and their children, fleeing violence, including young women exiting the sex trade, new moms and female child sex workers. Young women who are currently homeless or in dangerous housing situations will have long-term and safe housing.

If you would like to make a donation to ATIRA yourself, please donate here.

Profiting from a great idea

Atira Women's Resource Society could be the poster child for how to fund community services with a for-profit business.

It has taken five years and it's not been without its challenges, but with a contract from the Province to manage nine new social housing projects in the Downtown Eastside in addition to its current and growing strata portfolio, Atira Property Management is booming. In 2008 they are projecting profits of $250,000 which will go back to support Atira Women's Resource Society.

Known as social enterprises, the for profit businesses started by non-profit community service agencies aim to reduce the non-profit.s reliance on donations and government funding. Often, the product or service offered in the business has some relevance to the work the non-profit is doing. In Atira's case, the non-profit was in the housing business already by providing emergency shelter for their clients so a property management company seemed to be a logical fit.

One of the keys to the property management company.s success is being a true entrepreneurial organization, not just an offshoot of a non-profit. "I think this has been a difficult concept to understand,. says Atira.s Janice Abbott. .The property management company has a primary purpose of maximizing net profit and trying to incorporate specific social purposes . like hiring low-threshold employees for example, which can interfere with their primary purpose. Instead, the profits support Atira Women.s Resource Society to carry out its social purpose, which includes hiring low-threshold employees..

Since 1983, Atira Women's Resource Society has been supporting women and their children affected by violence and abuse.

For more information about property management services, go to www.atira.ca.

For Atira Women's Resource Society, check out www.atira.bc.ca.